GIRL GROUP WOWS THE JUDGES

Singer thrilled as Alien wows judges – even Si­mon Cow­ell

A RUIS­LIP teen is re­hears­ing seven days a week af­ter her girl group – Alien – blew Si­mon Cow­ell away at the X Fac­tor au­di­tions.

Rock group Alien made their mark on the show, aired on Septem­ber 5, re­ceiv­ing a stand­ing ova­tion from Cow­ell and the other three judges and a unan­i­mous ‘yes’ to the next round, af­ter per­form­ing their ver­sion of Black Eyed Peas’ Pump It.

Band mem­ber Frank Arens, 17, who lives in Ruis­lip with her par­ents is ‘re­ally ex­cited’ about the X Fac­tor, hav­ing per­formed from the age of three.

She said: “I went to a lit­tle dance school in Ruis­lip called Sole Per­form­ing Arts from the age of three un­til 15/16 and that got me into it.

“I al­ways loved do­ing it and that’s what I looked for­ward to on the week­ends – al­ways go­ing there. I knew that that’s what I wanted to.”

Frank had just fin­ished her first year study­ing mu­sic pro­duc­tion at Ac­cess to Mu­sic Col­lege, in Stratford, when the au­di­tions be­gan.

New X-Fac­tor judge Nick Grimshaw dubbed the group ‘the Spice Girls from Mars’ and pre­sen­ter Olly Murs said they were ‘out of this world’.

Frank said: “It was the best feel­ing ever! I don’t think we’ve ever ex­pe­ri­enced any­thing as amaz­ing as that. A stand­ing ova­tion from all four judges! It was just in­cred­i­ble.

“I don’t think we ex­pected it so it was more of a shock!

“We’re lit­er­ally re­hears­ing seven days a week, all the time and just work­ing re­ally hard for the next stage.”

All six mem­bers of Alien come from dance back­grounds and have their own in­flu­ences and style.

Frank added: “We all get inspired by a lot of dif­fer­ent peo­ple be­cause we’re all quite in­di­vid­ual in our­selves.

“I get inspired by dif­fer­ent peo­ple for dif­fer­ent rea­sons such as fash­ion and mu­sic. I pre­fer to be an in­di­vid­ual rather than copy­ing any­one else.”

Frank, who has two sis­ters and a brother, has re­ceived lots of sup­port since the au­di­tion.

She added: “Friends and fam­ily have all been mes­sag­ing me say­ing: ‘I saw you on TV, it was amaz­ing!’

“Ev­ery­one’s been so nice and re­ally sup­port­ive. Even peo­ple that we don’t know have been mes­sag­ing us say­ing the group are amaz­ing.”